On responding to RFPs
Recently I put a RFP out there for logo design, webpage design and business card design. I received lots of great responses but there were some trends that I saw in a few of them so I thought I’d post here about some things to watch out for when you’re responding to a RFP.
1 – When presenting your quote, don’t forget to indicate what currency you’re using. There are US Dollars, Canadian Dollars and Australian Dollars – all of which have a different value. In addition, if you are submitting a bid to someone outside of your country, the quote should be in their currency, not yours, so they don’t have to do the calculations. The more work they have to do to figure out your RFP, the less likely it is they’ll give you the work.
Finally, if you have any special taxes or anything you have to charge that are specific to your country, make sure you indicate why you are charging them. There is some sort of Aussie tax that appeared on a few of my bids and I have zero idea what it’s for, just that it adds several hundred dollars to the cost of my project. My suggestion would be that if you are responding to someone outside of your country, it might be better to just quote the total price since most people don’t much care what part is going to you and what part is going to taxes.
2 – If the issuer requests special information or a breakdown of your bid, provide it. In my case, I asked for a comprehensive bid as well as costs for each individual element, should I decide to not do the entire project at one time. This is a great time to point out if you are giving them some sort of bulk discount. However, ignoring the request for the breakdown just means your proposal is probably going to be trashed before it’s ever really read because a) you didn’t follow the instructions and b) most people look at the bottom line first.
3 – If the issuer provides samples of what they’re thinking of for the project, review them and comment on the fact that you reviewed them so that the issuer knows. Give your opinion. That will show that you went the extra mile to look at all of the information provided. If you don’t comment it may be assumed that you didn’t look at them at all which would indicate you’re not too committed to the details of what the issuer wants.
4 – If the issuer asks for a timeline for start and completion, provide it. You can caveat it by mentioning that it is based on current availability, which may change, but provide something so we know whether you can start in 2 days or 2 months and whether it’s going to take 2 weeks or 2 years to finish.
Those are my big 4 that I noticed during this process. If any of it doesn’t make sense, let me know and I’ll try to clarify.
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